Sweet Grind

Madness Pictures

Genre: Vignette

Director: Andre Madness

Cast: Kristina Black, Julian, Aurora Snow, Joel Lawrence, Byron Long, April Flowers, Sunrise Adams, Cheryl Dynasty, Lee Stone, Felix Vicious, Jay Ashley

Length: 92.5 minutes

Date of Production: 12/2001, 7/2002, 3/2003

Extra's: The box cover advertised a Behind the Scenes feature, something I often find quite enjoyable, but the DVD did NOT have one on it. That really sucked (in a bad way) since the other extras were lame, including some trailers and a photogallery. How tough would it have been to offer something extra in these days of stiff competition between porn producers?

Condoms: None

Audio/Video Quality: The picture was presented in the usual 1.33:1 ratio full frame color, as most porn is shot these days. Sadly, this was another case of a Madness Pictures DVD not playing in my Toshiba home theatre player, and I had to rely on my computer to watch it. If you're concerned about your own player's ability to play the DVD, make sure you take this into account (I've watched thousands of DVDs over the years and only a handful had problems). In any case, the picture looked okay on my small computer monitor but I can't really say how good it would compare on a regular television. There was some grain and color saturation but considering some of these scenes were shot years ago, I can't fuss too loudly about it. The audio was presented in stereo English but there was no separation between the channels and the primary audio factor were the limited vocals. It was about average in this regard from what I could tell.

Body of Review: Having watched several releases from Madness Pictures over the summer, I came to the conclusion that aside from having a lousy DVD replication process (their DVDs have issues with some players), they offer a lot of the same old porn that director Andre Madness is known for. Essentially, if you like one of his movies, you'll like them all just as if you dislike one of his releases, you'll find little to appreciate short of the performers he hires. The latest release from the company is a vignette driven compilation of older scenes called Sweet Grind. The movie had five scenes of varying heat and little else going for it. If you're a fan of the cast, you might want to check out this review but otherwise, there really wasn't a whole lot going for the DVD:

Scene One: Kristina, a brunette with a lean body and a somewhat distant look on her face, took care of the muscular Julian in a scene that really lacked anything special in terms of heat and chemistry. I have nothing against her but the lack of any real curves and her mechanical attitude towards sex made the scene fairly pointless. If you're still interested in what took place; they did oral on one another, some straight boinking, and it ended with a facial. I'll admit that she had the $50 hooker screams down pat and I'm sure it felt good to be tearing her apart as Julian seemed to do, but vanilla sex on a bed is nothing to spend money on these days.

Scene Two: Aurora, one of the true sexual performance artists of our time, has long been known as a gal that looked somewhat plain but showed talent far beyond her mousy exterior. While she's now under contract with another company, this scene was obviously filmed several years back when the young starlet bounced around the various production companies looking for work. Her partners this time were the ebony and ivory team of Byron and Joel, both skilled studs if you believe their previous partners. The sex this time was far from her best work but she took to the oral, straight and anal sex far better than the previous scene and fans will appreciate that she took the DP with her usual amount of energy and heat. It certainly wasn't her best scene, far from it in fact, but I think it stood out from the pack here by a wide margin.

Scene Three: Sunrise, the cute blonde on the right hand side of the front DVD cover, has been a cutie for a long time. Fans of hers know that she practically corners the "cute" market in any scene she is in and this scene was no different. Teaming up with porn veteran April, the gal on the left side of the front DVD cover (who looked kind of out of it if you catch my drift), the two had a lesbian scene that was somewhat weak compared to their other scenes in recent years. While I can't remember another scene where they both did each other, few would argue that April was unskilled in bed and even a relatively young Sunrise should've been better than this. Sunrise looked like she was afraid of something or otherwise distracted and April seemed uninvolved in the sex so as much as I wanted to like the scene, I simply couldn't.

Scene Four: Cheryl, the little Asian gal with a very lean look and few curves, was up next in a scene with the massive Lee. This seemed to be quite a mismatch since he could probably crush her by simply leaning a bit too hard but fans seem to enjoy seeing a tiny gal get slammed by a big guy. This scene would probably not disappoint them in that sense since she gave him some energetic head, let him pound her tiny pussy and really drive home the bacon in her ass. She did ATM and was very talented although I'm not really into the tiny gal with big guy theme presented.

Scene Five: Felix is one of the more attractive gals I've watched in recent times. Her youthful look, pretty face and nicely sleek body combined with her sexual skills is enough to drive most men wild with desire, including a jaded old porn reviewer like myself. Her partner for the scene was Jay, a good enough porn stud, and the two went down into his basement for a little subterranean boning. Her oral was probably the best of the movie (with maybe a single exception) and her ability to pump back when being taken was solid too so I'm comfortable in saying I liked the scene but it wasn't long enough or filled with the usual chemistry she has in her scenes.

Summary: If you're looking for some performances by the listed cast in order to complete your collection, this DVD will be of value to you but otherwise, I have to rate it as a Skip It. There were no value added extras worth noting, the cast was typically not doing nearly as much (or as hot) as they usually do, and the sex seemed to be something you could set your watch to. I've seen far better from Mr. Madness in the past but this one appears to have been comprised of scenes that he left out of his past work; something that begs the question (if the scenes were any good, why save them until now?). To be fair, he's as good a director as many of his peers but I wasn't really able to suggest this as worthy of his skill. Look elsewhere if you want to see his better work which is something I think the cast would claim too.

Note: You can see recent candid shots of several of these performers by visiting: My Photo's and read about their antics at 2004 AEE Show.